Gavin Watson: 'Let them rant and rave as much as they want'

By Jeff Wicks - 06 February 2019 - 13:29

Gavin Watson with then president Jacob Zuma on a visit to the company's Krugersdorp headquarters in April 2015. Image: Twitter

Bosasa CEO Gavin Watson – implicated in wide-scale graft at the state capture inquiry – remains unperturbed by mounting evidence that he paid off government ministers during former president Jacob Zuma's tenure.

"When it’s finished‚ we can talk – but not now‚" he told sister publication TimesLIVE from the driver's seat of his electric blue BMW outside his home in Johannesburg.

"Let them rant and rave as much as they want‚" Watson added.

A glib Watson‚ wearing a tie emblazoned with the company logo of African Global‚ would not be drawn to comment further.

Many years after its inception and after winning hundreds of millions of rands in state tenders and contracts‚ Bosasa changed its name to the African Global Operations.

The state capture commission last month saw damning evidence in a video submitted‚ and heard how Bosasa kept cash in vaults and delivered them in grey security bags to bribe officials for contracts.

Ex-Bosasa COO Angelo Agrizzi‚ the inquiry’s star witness‚ was testifying about a video he presented as part of his evidence which shows Bosasa employee Andries van Tonder taking money from one vault to another vault.

The video in Watson’s vault showed piles of money stacked up and counted for bribes‚ and revealed Watson sitting at his desk with cash in his hand - which Agrizzi said was R1m.

He faces allegations that he handed piles of cash to Zuma‚ using the payoff as leverage to influence the National Prosecuting Authority and the Hawks who had zeroed in on the company.